Prayer for the Dead (25 page)

Nate Cohen would be seated in his highbacked chair, the arms worn shiny by use. From his angle on the stairs, Dyce could just see part of the side and back of his head as he leaned forward slightly. The old man sat ramrod straight whenever he was talking to his son-in-law, never allowing his back to ease into the chair as if that would be a sign of weakness before the devil. Dyce knew that grandfather thought his father was the devil. Sometimes Dyce believed that, too. That was often the only way to explain his behavior. He could see the wave in grandfather’s silver hair, curving as gently as a furrow in the field, over and past the ear. In the background, behind his father, was the heavy brass candlestick with its eight candles that grandfather used for his devotionals. Grandfather did all of his worshipping at home; there was no church that did it right, he had explained to Dyce.

They would be arguing about money, Dyce knew. His father would be demanding more, alternately cursing and wheedling, frustrated in his powerlessness. Grandfather would be demanding changes in Dysen’s behavior, some of them about the drinking, some about his treatment of Dyce. Sometimes he would insist that Dysen give his son up, let him come to live here in the old farmhouse—that was when Dyce felt his heart soar with hope. But his father never agreed. He would continue to yell and whine and in the end he would always return home to the city with Dyce beside him. The trip back would be a time of peace, his father happy and gloating over having won out over the old man again, and Dyce would be torn between sorrow at leaving his grandfather and yearning that this moment of satisfaction for his father could last and last. His father never hit him on the way back to the city.

Finally, unable to blank out the voices or to hear them clearly, and alarmed by the increase in hostility, Dyce stole to the stairs. He wore flannel pajamas that his grandfather always had laid out for him on the bed and that he always carefully folded and put back atop the covers when he left. He loved the pajamas but he never thought of taking them with him. They were part of grandfather’s house, another sign of love, just like the sheets that were always fresh and crisp, the woolen blankets with the crease down the middle from being folded and stored for his return. The wooden floors were cold to his feet as he crept across his room. There was a board that creaked every time, no matter how he tried to avoid it, but he knew they were talking too loud downstairs to hear it.

Dyce settled on the stairs and watched as the familiar pattern began to change. His father was drunker than usual and he would pause sometimes in his ranting as if trying to remember what he was saying, and where he was.

“You struck him on the way here in the car,” said grandfather, and there was an ominous note to his voice.

“I never.” Dysen seemed insulted by the suggestion.

“You hit him on the shoulder. I saw the bruise.”

“He fell down. He’s a kid, he falls down.”

“You hit him. The boy told me. I saw the bruise when I bathed him.”

Dysen squinted at the old man knowingly. “You spend too much time giving my boy baths, how about that? He can wash himself, he’s old enough to wash himself.” Dysen rocked back on his heels, grinning triumphantly as if he had scored a telling point, then staggered as he fought to keep his balance. When he recovered, he seemed lost for a moment.

“He can wash his own damned self,” he said finally.

“He has marks all over his body,” said grandfather. “He tells me what you do to him.”

Dysen shook his head vigorously. “He’s a lying little fucker.”

“I can report you,” grandfather said. “I can have him taken away from you. You are a drunken sot and you mistreat the boy. I will have the authorities give him to me.”

“The fuck you will,” said Dysen. “You just want him for yourself, you old bastard. You just want to give that boy baths all day long, how about that?”

Nate Cohen rose to his feet. His voice was trembling with fury.

“You Antichrist!” He lifted his arm, finger pointing at the sky, shaking.

“… raise your hand to me, you son of a bitch,” Dysen said. “I’ll take your head off, you old Jew fuck!”

Dyce gasped as his father cocked a fist and stepped toward his grandfather, then lurched past him and toward the stairs. He was on Dyce before he could get to his feet. His father showed no surprise at finding him there.

“Trying to take my boy away from me,” he said. He hugged Dyce to him and the alcohol on his breath enveloped them both. “Trying to steal old Rodger-Dodger.”

His father swept him up in his arms and staggered down the steps, nearly falling.

“Put the boy down,” grandfather demanded. But Dysen clung to his son with both arms.

“We know what the old fart’s up to, don’t we, Rodger?” He lurched into the parlor, still carrying Dyce.

“I want what’s best for the boy.”

“We know what he’s up to, “Dysen repeated. “We’re just a little too fucking smart for the old bastard.”

“Put the boy down, you‘ll hurt him.”

“Never hurt my own son,” Dysen said. He thrust his head forward and snarled at the old man, the snarl turned into a laugh, and he wobbled on his feet, suddenly confused again.

“Put him down, let him go to bed,” grandfather said. “He doesn’t need to see this.”

Dysen sat heavingly onto the sofa, pulling his son atop him, laughing as the breath left him, as if it were a good joke. Dyce looked to his grandfather, his eyes pleading for help. Dysen’s cheek pressed against the boy’s and the stubble of his beard scraped the skin. Suddenly he was kissing Dyce and squeezing him harder as his mood vaulted into maudlin.

“I love my boy,” he said. “Love my Rodger-Dodger. Won’t let.you have him. He wants to stay with his papa, don’t you. Rodger, tell him, tell the old fart you want to stay with your papa.”

“No,” said Dyce.

“No?” Dysen stared at him, blinking, trying to clear his vision as if the boy’s remark had made it blurry.

“No?”

“I want to stay here,” Dyce said, but he was so breathless with his own audacity that he wasn ‘t certain if the words came out.

Dysen looked at Dyce for a moment, then at grandfather, shaking his head, bewildered. A smile played at his lips and for a second Dyce thought it would be all right, he understood.

Dysen slapped the boy with the back of his hand, then with the open palm going the other way.

Grandfather screamed “No!” then was yanking Dysen to his feet and away from Dyce, pulling so hard the material on Dysen’s shirt ripped In a blur, his ears still ringing from the blow, his vision misty with tears and disorientation, Dyce saw the two men struggle. Grandfather was surprisingly strong for his age, but even when drunk Dysen knew how to fight. By the time Dyce could get to his feet, his father had the old man on his knees, his hands on his throat. Dyce could hear grandfather coughing and gasping for breath. Dysen was roaring with oaths. In his anger, he seemed happy, and Dyce realized he would gladly kill his grandfather.

Dyce swung the candlestick with both hands from the waist upward. The brass base hit his father in the back of the skull where the head met the neck. Candles flew throughout the room and one hit Dysen on the ear as he turned his head toward Dyce.

His head continued to swivel as he fell, stiff legged, and his eyes caught his son’s on the way to the floor. When he remembered it, Dyce thought the eyes were still glowing as they bore into his own even though reason told him his father was dead when he hit the floor.

Chaney was glowing with satisfaction. He looked to Becker as if the buttons on his cardigan would burst with pride. “Got him,” Chaney said.

He led Becker down the hallway toward the actuarial room, nearly skipping in his excitement. “Tell me,” said Becker.

Chaney kept walking and Becker realized the man wanted to relive his triumph in his own domain, to be overheard and admired by his fellow actuaries. Becker held any further questions until they stood at Dyce’s old desk.

A young woman sat at the desk until Chaney shooed her away with a gesture. It was a theatrical impulse, Becker thought. Chaney could have demonstrated his prowess at any terminal, but he wanted to do it at Dyce’s.

“Got him cold,” Chaney said, pointing at the computer terminal as if it were Dyce himself His voice was elevated just enough to be easily overheard by the others in the room. Becker realized how Chaney had succeeded in rising above the others into the position of supervisor—he knew how to stage-manage his moments. Becker wondered if Dyce had disliked the man as much as Becker did.

“Why don’t you tell me about it?” As if he could have prevented him.

“Well, the key to success is setting up the right trap in the first place,” Chaney said, launching into a detailed, technical explanation of his prowess with the computer. The speech was aimed at his peers, not Becker, who understood just enough of it to realize it was fairly ingenious. Not brilliant, but bright. Not, most likely, much better than anyone else in the room could have done. They were actuaries, but manipulation of the computer was essential to their functioning.

When Chaney breathed, Becker cut in. “Where?”

“What?” Chaney was annoyed at the interruption.

“Where was he when he tried to break in?”

“I’m getting to that.”

“And how do you know it was Dyce?”

“How do I know?” Chaney looked taken aback and uncomfortable. “Well, I don’t
know
know, but I know. I mean, who else could it be? Who else even knew his file existed? We’re going on certain assumptions here, aren’t we? Do you want him to sign his name? The trap was set up to alert us when someone tried to get into Dyce’s file. I mean, we
assumed
it had to be Dyce, didn’t we, Becker?”

“That’s Special Agent Becker, actually,” Becker said.

The woman who had been sitting at the desk and now stood, arms folded and watching a few feet away, suppressed a giggle. Chaney glowered at her, then glowered at Becker.

“Would you like to continue?” Becker asked politely.

“That’s what I was trying to do,” said Chaney.

“Where was he when he tried to break in… He did break in, didn’t he? He was successful.”

“You didn’t tell me to stop him, just find out when he tried to do it.”

“Did he try or did he do it?”

“He did it. He read his file. I mean he ‘tried’ in the sense that he didn’t escape my detection.”

“So, where was he?”

“I have that information,” Chaney said, speaking as if his bit of gold had turned to dross.

I shouldn’t do this, Becker thought. It costs me nothing but time and annoyance to let the man do his little victory dance. Why hassle him and make him look like a jerk in front of his people? Not that I’m making him look like a jerk. He is a jerk, and they probably all know it anyway, so what do I accomplish? I satisfy a small vindictive urge. Petty, petty, Becker thought. No wonder Hatcher is district agent in charge and I never rose higher than special agent. Even the ‘special’ was no distinction since everyone was called special agent. A hangover from Hoover’s grandiosity. No ordinary agents for the Chief.

“The request for information came from an office in Waverly, Connecticut. It began as a request for rates on home owner policies; that’s how he got into the system, and from there he moved into actuarial and finally into his own files. He knew all the codes, he had no trouble.”

“So he wouldn’t know he was being watched.”

“There was no way he could detect that from his side. As far as he knows, he got away with it.”

“Do you have an address for that office in Waverly?”

“Of course. He didn’t just read his file, by the way, in case you want to know.” Chaney had turned snippy.

Becker just stared at him.

“Well, he tried to destroy the file, too.”

“Did he?”

“You can’t erase a personal file from outside the system, of course; we have safeguards on that. Either Dyce forgot or thought he’d take a fling at it anyway. He didn’t get away with it.”

A small triumph, and not one that belonged to Chaney but to the designer of the original system, but Becker let him have it anyway.

“Well done.”

“Thank you.”

“What time did this happen?”

Chaney glanced at a notebook in his hand.

“Eleven thirty-six.”

“It’s only ten o’clock now,” Becker said. “I was going to say p.m.”

“He broke in last night and you didn’t tell me until now?”

Chaney smiled involuntarily, nervously. “Actually, it was Friday night.”

“This is Monday!”

“I didn’t find out until this morning myself…”

“If you’re going to build a trap, you ought to be able to tell when you’ve caught something,” Becker said. “By now our boy has probably taken the cheese and disappeared back into the woodwork.”

Becker yanked the phone from its cradle and punched Hatcher’s number.

“You can have your desk back. Miss,” Becker said, dismissively turning his back to Chaney.

I really have to work on my people skills, he thought briefly, waiting for Hatcher to answer.

He brushed grandfather’s hair and watched the old man’s face ease into relaxation. It was one of the few times Dyce saw his beloved grandfather allow himself to relax, and it thrilled him to be the instrument of it. He used the twin brushes with alternating strokes and watched the hair straighten momentarily, then recover into the gentle waves.

“I must have an Italian in the woodpile, “grandfather would say with a wink. “I still have all my hair and all my teeth. Can you believe that?”

“Yes, I can,” said Dyce, who believed everything his grandfather told him.

The old man looked at his reflection in the mirror, nodding approvingly, then smiled at the boy who stood behind him. “The Lord takes care of His own in many ways,” he said. “He even helps out with your vanity sometimes, although I don’t believe He approves of it. But He understands. ’Cause the Lord himself is vain, Roger. Did you know that?”